SC’s mostly male Legislature is about to ban most abortions. How will SC women vote?
As South Carolina lawmakers debate a restrictive “fetal heartbeat” abortion ban bill, one question continuously resurfaces: Why is the state’s male-dominated Legislature ruling on what a woman can choose to do with her body?
That question came up recently in two subcommittee meetings, where South Carolinian constituents argued for hours against the bill, S. 1. It came up on the Senate floor, where a Republican lawmaker in favor of the bill said it was “difficult to listen to the arguments of men about forcing such a circumstance on a woman.” And most recently, it came up during the bill’s last hearing, where it sparked a heated debate between lawmakers.
“I notice that we only have three women that sit around here that are legislators,” said Rep. John King, D-York. “But we as men will sit here today and legislate what these three women will do with their bodies.”
South Carolina has one of the lowest proportions of female lawmakers in the country, according to the Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of Politics. Only about 17.6% of the state’s legislators are women, ranking South Carolina 46th in the nation. That’s even after women made gains in the Legislature during the 2020 election.
As the heartbeat bill, which would stop doctors from performing abortions once a heartbeat can be detected via ultrasound under threat of a felony charge, traveled through committee, only seven women — four in the House and three in the Senate — got a chance to speak on the legislation. In the House, the subcommittee that took up the bill was comprised entirely of men.
But even among the women of the South Carolina Legislature, the issue of access to abortions is extremely divisive, according to a poll from The State of 13 women in the House, about half of the women legislators in the chamber.
The debate is heavily split down party lines: each of the six Republican women The State interviewed said she would vote in favor of the bill, while each of the seven Democratic women polled said she would vote against it. Each side made arguments that mirrored their party’s stance on the issue.
During the last few years, abortions performed after six weeks in South Carolina made up about 55% of all abortions performed in the state, according to statistics from the Department of Health and Environmental Control. Of the 5,101 abortions performed in the state in 2019, 2,323 were performed at six weeks or gestation or earlier.
For State Rep. Melissa Oremus, the debate on abortion is extremely personal. The Aiken Republican got pregnant as a teenager and faced pressure to get an abortion.
“I never once said I have a different choice to make when the whole world was telling me, ‘Get an abortion, get an abortion,’ ” Oremus said. “As a woman of faith, that never crossed my mind. It was a consequence of my actions.”
Oremus ultimately decided to have the baby.
Oremus said she grew up poor and had to fend largely for herself as a teen with a baby. She worked up to three jobs while in college and sometime needed to rely on Medicaid and other public assistance to make ends meet. There were days where she toted her child to class with her.
“I lived that life and never once did I say there was another option out there,” Oremus said. “It just made my life a little harder.”
Oremus describes herself as 100% against abortion and said women should look toward putting their child up for adoption instead.
On the other end of the political spectrum, Democrats are vehemently against the bill. S.C. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, called it “the final nail in the coffin for women being able to decide what to do with their own bodies.”
“For as long as I’ve been in the Legislature, we have pecked away at eliminating a woman’s right to choose, and over the years, we have gradually eroded that choice,” said Cobb-Hunter, the longest serving legislator in the House. “This heartbeat bill, in my view, is the final erosion of a woman’s right to decide what to do with their bodies.”
S.C. Rep. Wendy Brawley, D-Richland, said that a woman’s body is the “one thing she has total autonomy over.”
“I don’t think the arguments that have been made in support of S.1 justify the potential harm it will do,” Brawley said.
Democrats point to studies that show that when women don’t have access to safe abortions, they will seek out other methods of abortion, even if they are not safe.
“People will find gateways to do what they really want to do,” S.C. Rep. Annie McDaniel, D-Fairfield, said.
“For those individuals who utilize abortions for whatever means, I just pray that we can just keep safe and healthy avenues for them, and I just pray they pray before making those kind of decisions,” she added.
Democrats also take issue with this bill being one of the first that could pass both chambers this year.
“We need to focus on the COVID crisis,” S.C. Rep. Beth Bernstein, D-Richland, said. “We need to focus on getting broadband to our most vulnerable areas. We need to focus on getting our children back to school ... and not focus on S. 1.”
Further, Democrats argue, the bill is unconstitutional, and similar bills passed in other states have been shot down by courts or are stuck in lengthy, expensive court battles.
“The men of the state chose to waste money on something they know is unconstitutional,” Brawley said.
While Democrats feel that women should have the right to decide what to do with their bodies, Republicans say that the decision to have an abortion also affects the unborn child.
S.C Rep. Sylleste Davis, R-Berkeley, said when she was pregnant with her sons, she “made the realization that I was sharing my body with another person.” Pregnant women are not just responsible for taking care of themselves, but also for their fetus, she said.
“I don’t believe that this is an issue about, ‘My body, my right,” Davis said.
“I believe this baby has rights like any other person,” she added.
S.C. Rep. Sandy McGarry, R-Lancaster, says she understands when women argue that they have the right to control their own bodies.
“This is totally different,” McGarry said. “This is a heartbeat. This is a living human being.”
The deepest divide
One of the strongest divides over the bill is over whether exceptions for rape and incest should be included. Over the last two sessions, two female lawmakers said they felt compelled to come out as victims of sexual assault due to arguments from Republicans against exceptions.
In 2019, then-S.C. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Charleston, revealed she had been raped when she was 16-years-old. She decided to come forward with her story as the House judiciary committee debated whether to add exceptions for rape or incest into the bill.
“Rape is not a partisan issue. … It doesn’t see party,” Mace said. “I do believe in the case of rape that if a pregnancy occurs that a woman should have that exception.”
Earlier this year, when senators engaged in a fierce, multi-day debate over which exceptions should be included in the bill, S.C. Sen. Mia McLeod said she felt compelled to come to the podium and reveal for the first time that she was a survivor of sexual assault. She told her story after another senator argued on the floor that a fetus should not be aborted because of the father’s crimes and said some women who were rape survivors later said they were grateful to have a child.
“I could barely contain myself,” McLeod said. “Clearly, he has never been raped. It’s probably safe to say that the 40 men in this chamber and the 100 in the House chamber haven’t either. Well, I have.”
Some Republican women in the House are against exceptions for rape and incest, but support passing the bill as it is so it doesn’t have to be sent back to the Senate. Those exceptions are for cases in which the health of the mother is in jeopardy, or in the case of rape, incest or severe fetal anomalies that likely would lead to death that often aren’t found until at least ten or eleven weeks.
Oremus said she is “100% opposed to abortion,” but added that she thinks it’s important that this legislation be passed.
“One life saved is better than none,” she said.
Some anti-abortion women in the Legislature, however, struggle over the inclusion of exceptions.
When asked whether she supported exceptions for rape and incest, McGarry said it was “a tough question.” Constituents often ask her to support exceptions because women who are victims of rape didn’t ask for that to happen to them.
“I still think those babies deserve to live,” McGarry said.
Men’s voice in the conversation
The women of the House are also deeply divided when it comes to men’s place in the conversation about women’s health issues.
During the debate in the Senate, four of the five female senators, including one Republican who voted in favor of the “heartbeat” bill, expressed discomfort about a majority-male legislature taking up this issue.
Many Democrats expressed the same discomfort.
“We need to trust women to make the best decisions for themselves,” S.C. Rep. Chandra Dillard, D-Greenville, said.
Dillard said bills like S. 1 “says that men know best. They know our health care needs.”
Brawley pointed out that the Legislature never takes up bills that would affect men’s reproductive rights.
“No man is being required to have the state intervene on their personal decisions on their body,” Brawley said.
But Republicans argued that the decision to have an abortion can affect men as well.
“Half of the make-up of a child is made up with men,” S.C. Rep. Lin Bennett, R-Charleston, said. “I think they do have a voice. It’s their children as well as our children.”
It wasn’t always this way
Cobb-Hunter, the longest serving member of the S.C. House, said she remembers a time when Republican women could be pro-choice. But as being anti-abortion has become more of a cornerstone of the Republican party, that has changed.
“They’re so afraid” of being challenged in a primary, Cobb-Hunter said. “It very hard to get members to take a principled stand on controversial issues. ... They’re just not interested in doing anything that will get them primary opposition or cause voters to send them nasty emails.”
Some lawmakers who oppose the abortion legislation have noted that Republicans aren’t in favor of other life saving measures like police reform and healthcare reform.
“To be truly pro-life, as far as I’m concerned, you must stand for more than just the need to say I’m pro-life,” S.C Rep. Pat Henegan, D-Marlboro, said. “Pro-life needs to mean that you support unborn children, children that have been born, people who are sick, people who live on a fixed income and are considered poor, black, white, Hispanics, any minority person.”
Democrats question whether, if men didn’t have a say on this bill, Republican women would vote against it.
Bernstein hoped that the vote would be different if it were up to the women of the Legislature. But, she added, some Republicans think voting against the “fetal heartbeat” abortion ban bill would come back to haunt them when they’re up for reelection.
“Unfortunately, this has become a partisan issue,” she said.
Brawley said the vote on this bill should not be a “red or blue decision,” but a decision on health care.
“Frankly, I have not heard from my Republican female colleagues,” Brawley said. “I do not see that they’ve been up in arms about this. I hope they would be for the sake of their daughters.”
Women’s vote
Women occupy five of the Senate’s 46 seats. Here’s how they voted on the abortion ban bill, S.1:
▪ Sen. Margie Bright-Matthews, D-Colleton: Against
▪ Sen. Penry Gustofson, R-Kershaw: In favor
▪ Sen. Mia McLeod, D-Richland: Against
▪ Sen. Sandy Senn, R-Charleston: Against
▪ Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington: In favor
The State spoke to 13 of the 25 women in the House. Here’s how they said they would vote:
▪ Rep. Lin Bennett, R-Charleston: In favor
▪ Rep. Beth Bernstein, D-Richland: Against
▪ Rep. Wendy Brawley, D-Richland: Against
▪ Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg: Against
▪ Rep. Sylleste Davis, R-Berkeley: In favor
▪ Rep. Chandra Dillard, D-Greenville: Against
▪ Rep. Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort: In favor
▪ Rep. Raye Felder, R-York: In favor
▪ Rep. Pat Henegan, D-Marlboro: Against
▪ Rep. Sandy McGarry, R-Lancaster: In favor
▪ Rep. Melissa Oremus, R-Aiken: In favor
▪ Rep. Spencer Whetmore, D-Charleston: Against
This story was originally published February 16, 2021 at 1:39 PM.
